MARCH 55 



squills (including the blue hyacinth) are left untouched, 

 but chagrin awaits the amateur who tries to deck his 

 woodland paths with grape hyacinths. The pestilent 

 rabbit goes for them straight. 



In regard to daffodils, they appear to be protected, not 

 by any chemical poison, but by a purely mechanical 

 agency, which has been brought to light by the researches 

 of the Rev. W. Wilks, editor of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society's Journal. Last February (1905) he heard from a 

 nurseryman, who grows daffodils for the flower trade, that 

 men and boys employed to gather the flowers suffered 

 from poisoned hands, and asking for a remedy for the 

 poison. He explained that after the men had been at 

 work a little while, their hands became sore, gatherings 

 forming under the finger-nails and wherever the skin was 

 broken or chapped. This statement having been con- 

 firmed by another daffodil grower, one of the largest in 

 the trade, Mr. Wilks instituted research into the cause, 

 and came to the conclusion that the irritant in the sap of 

 the daffodil is not a true poison at all, but that the 

 mischief is caused by small crystals of lime, called 

 raphides, of which the sap is full. He recommends that 

 people employed to gather daffodils (and it might surprise 

 some persons to learn the scale of that industry) should 

 oil their hands before setting to work, and rub tallow 

 under their finger-nails. 



The florist has been very busy of late years with 

 daffodils and other species of narcissus, and the new 

 hybrids offered in the bulb catalogues are bewildering in 

 number and variety. Some of them are very beautiful, 

 no doubt, but for my own part I am content with the 

 natural species. Commonest of all, and inferior to none, 



